The 2013 BSFA Lecture at Eastercon will be given by Dr Louise Livesey (Ruskin College Oxford), and is entitled ‘A Highly Political Act: speech, silence, hearing and sexual violence′. The lecture will be given at 5.00 pm on Saturday March 30th, in the Main Programme Room of the Cedar Court Hotel, Bradford. The lecture is open to any member of Eastercon.

Dr Louise Livesey is Tutor in Sociology and Women’s Studies at Ruskin College Oxford.  She is an activist as well as an academic and works hard to bring the two activities together as much as possible.  Mostly recently she has been working on activist/academic engagement with Oxford Brookes University’s Tale of Two Cultures conferences and speaking at events as diverse as Slutwalk Oxford, Oxford Reclaim the Night  and One Billion Rising Oxford.  She is also a playwright, performer and former blogger at The F Word.

The BSFA Lecture is intended as a companion to the George Hay Lecture, which is presented at the Eastercon by the Science Fiction Foundation. Where the Hay Lecture invites scientists, the BSFA Lecture invites academics from the arts and humanities, because we recognise that science fiction fans aren’t only interested in science.  The lecturers are given a remit to speak “on a subject that is likely to be of interest to science fiction fans” – i.e. on whatever they want!  This is the fifth BSFA Lecture.

The 2012 BSFA Lecture at Eastercon will be given by Dr Marc Morris, and is entitled ‘Regime Change in England, 1066′. It draws on his recently-published book The Norman Conquest. The lecture will be given at 2.30 on Saturday April 7th, in the Commonwealth Hall of the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Heathrow. The lecture is open to any members of Eastercon (if you’re not already a member, I’m afraid membership is now closed).

Marc is a mediaeval historian and broadcaster.  He presented the television series Castle in 2003, and wrote the accompanying book (a new edition comes out in May 2012).  He is also the author of The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century, and A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain.  His new book, published on March 29, is a history of The Norman Conquest.  Copies will be available to purchase at Eastercon. He also appeared in the most recent episode of Time Team.

The BSFA lecture is intended as a companion to the George Hay Lecture presented at the Eastercon by the Science Fiction Foundation. Where the Hay Lecture invites scientists, the BSFA Lecture invites academics from the arts and humanities (with a particular bias towards history), because we recognise that science fiction fans aren’t only interested in science.  The lecturers are given a remit to speak “on a subject that is likely to be of interest to science fiction fans” – i.e. on whatever they want!  This is the fourth BSFA Lecture.